Witness Him Now
I just got back from working a "Walk to Emmaus". During that walk, I saw things happen that I have never seen before...not in that number. I saw a whole group of people...EVERYONE we prayed for...get delivered and healed. Now I don't know about you, but I have prayed a whole lot of prayers in the past years that God did not answer instantly. I saw it in the Word, but I could not access it. Is anyone picking up what I am putting down? Then two years ago God gave me the "Parable of the Raccoon". When I told the story of the raccoon, everyone who wanted it got delivered. For the first time I saw the word preached with power. Then this weekend a whole table of women came into the prayer room, a kind of impromptu thing. While passing through, they voiced that they wanted to be prayed for. Everyone who sat down in that chair received deliverance and healing. Wow! I didn't tell the raccoon story, but it happened anyway. God, what just happened? Then I began to look back at what words were spoken. I wrapped my arms around the first lady and said, "Heart, open wide. Let the light of Jesus and the love of God permeate every broken place, every hidden chamber, every place that was rejected and trampled, abused and discarded. Go into every insecure place and heal this heart completely. You said that You have come to heal the broken-hearted and to set at liberty those who are bound, to open prison doors and set the captives free, so LORD of Heaven's Armies come with power. I ask this in Jesus' name. AMEN" OK, so as I thought back on what happened, I realized with both the "Parable of the Raccoon" and the prayer spoken over these women, the common factor is "Open up you gates, you everlasting doors and let the King of Glory come in. And who is the King of Glory? The LORD mighty in battle, He is the King of Glory!" Wow! We spend our lifetime trying to shut the gates and guard our hearts so that we will not be hurt again, and God is saying, "I stand at the door and knock, and everyone who opens to Me I will come in and sup with him and he with me." Heart wide open! Wow! With the "Parable of the Raccoon", I always ask, "Do you have raccoons?" They say, "Yes." I then ask, "Do you want to get rid of those raccoons?" They say (most of the time), "Yes." I then pray over their heart, "Search their heart, O LORD, and know them. Try their anxious thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in them and lead them in paths of life everlasting." Then whatever God brings to their mind, I lead them to accept their guilt and confess their sin. God then forgives them and erases the consequences of that sin, and peace comes. This time I just prayed, "Heart, open wide to the light and the love of God!" I think in both cases the person stood in agreement with me that their heart's door could open. Once opened, the Prince of Peace can enter to save, deliver, and heal. Wow!!!!! The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy! Blessings, my friend. May you, too, find the peace that passes all understanding, and may you prosper and be in health...even as your soul prospers.
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I don't know about you, but I see healing scriptures so clearly in the Bible, but I rarely see God stretch out His hand to heal. I see in Isaiah 53 what Jesus paid for with His stripes and on the cross: our transgressions, our iniquities, our peace and our health. He already paid the price. We should have free access to all that He paid for, yet what I am seeing is that people I know and love continue to suffer day after day while God presumably remains silent. Then the last few weeks, the LORD has begun to download things into my spirit that I never understood before. I think what He is giving me is pure, unadulterated truth. I want to share with you what He has given to me. First of all, God is the one who does all things, so if sickness comes, it is God who does it. This made all the difference in the world to me to know that everything that happens is from God. He is just using Satan to accomplish His purposes. So what are His purposes? Most of the time in scripture I see that the purpose of sickness is to bring us to a place of repentance. (see Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28) So the first thing I would presume is that God is trying to get my attention. So what I would do is ask God in to search my heart. I would let Him into every corner. Whatever He brings to the surface, I would "humble myself and accept my guilt and confess my sin". I would bring whatever God reveals into the light. If it remains in the darkness, the darkness has control, but if it is brought into the light, God can heal us. James says, "Confess your sins one to another that you may be healed." The Bible also says, "May you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers." So it is God's purpose to bring us to a place where we put our sins under the blood and turn away from them. Then He can cause our soul to proper and bring us health. Most everything I see in scripture points to this. However, there are two other scriptures that make me think that sickness is not always connected to sin. There was a blind man, and the disciples asked Jesus, "Who sinned, this man or his parent?" Jesus said, "Neither. This sickness is for the glory of God." So there was not sin involved in this, only God's glory. Then there is the story of Job. If you are like me, I have stayed away from this story for a long time. It is hard for me to understand a man who is righteous in every way, who "fears God" and "shuns evil" who went through all that this man went through, but it happened. Then I got to thinking that the there was no way for the enemy to attack this man. He feared God, and he shunned evil. There was a hedge around him that was so "high" and "wide" that the enemy just went around him. He didn't even look his way until God said, "Have you considered Job, my servant." OK, so here we go...God did it. He opened the door for the enemy to enter Job's life. Why? What was His purpose? At the end of the book, after God challenges Job, Job said, "I had only heard of You before, but now I know You." I believe that in the coming days we are going to "get to know" God in ways that we never dreamed possible. So what does that mean. It means that we "fix our eyes on Jesus", "we guard our heart" so that no enemy comes in, and "in everything we give thanks for this is the will of Christ Jesus concerning you". Once we cross over to praise and thanksgiving as our "default" response, we will be victorious in all we do and God's holy name will be "hallowed" among the nations. Praise and thanksgiving opens the door for God's mighty arm to descend with power on our enemies to defeat them. (Psalm 150 and Isaiah 30:29-33) The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy! A couple of months ago I was making a delivery to the panhandle when I went into McDonald's to get breakfast. While I was eating the breakfast, I sat beside the TV. Jodi Arias was giving her testimony. I didn't know anything about her. We don't have cable TV, we just have Netflex and Roku, so our news sources come from the internet. I got the impression that in 2008 she shot her boyfriend twice and stabbed him 17 times. I heard her give a minute, detailed account of what happened just before the murder. She said, "I picked up the gun, my fingers were on the trigger. I remember thinking, 'This will stop him.' Then I don't remember anything." The newscaster then came on and said, "Her testimony was just blown all to pieces, how are we to believe she remembers all the details right up to the time of the murder?" But I knew in my heart that she was telling the truth.
In my past, I have been exposed to three people who had demons manifest. In all three cases, they did not remember what happened when the demon came up. I knew that a demon manifested that brutally murdered this man. While I sat there pondering what I had heard, I asked God to allow me to understand what had happened. He then dropped a scripture into my spirit that said that if you have hate in your heart, you are a murderer, and then I understood. Jodi Arias hated this man. Not only did she hate him, but she "fixed her eyes" on the hatred. She petted that "raccoon". I know that we can all justify this response because she was abused in so many ways, but we are not talking about what the man did, we are talking about how she responded to what he did. She hated him. When she allowed hate to enter her heart, she allowed the spirit of murder to enter. Then the spirit of murder got stronger and stronger as she "fixed her eyes" on how much she hated him. Now I don't know about you, but I have a hard time understanding demons and demon possession, but I can understand hate entering a person's heart. Then with her thoughts - which were fixed continually on her hatred - she gave permission for the spirit of murder that was in her to take over. Her sin was to hate. The result of her hatred was that a spirit was allowed to manifest and BRUTALLY DO WHAT IT WANTED TO DO. Wow! Then another scripture came to mind. If you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you have already committed adultery. This is the same thing. Once lust or hatred enters the heart, we have a choice, we can "fix our eyes on it" or we can turn our back on it, confess our sin and go on with our life. If we choose to fix our eyes on "lust" or "hate" or "jealousy" or "greed" or "unforgiveness" or "bitterness" or "revenge" or "selfish ambition" or ... you get the point, that spirit becomes stronger and stronger until at some point it takes over and acts out. That is why pornography is so destructive. It "fixes our eyes" on lust. And the more we "fix our eyes" on it, the stronger it becomes until it has an opportunity, and then the spirit manifests and the spirit is allowed to BRUTALLY DO WHAT IT WANTS TO DO. That is why the crimes are becoming more heinous. We no longer control the direction our thoughts are taking. I know that some of you understand what I am talking about, but the hatred or lust that is inside of you is so big that you don't know how you can ever overcome it. You can't, but God can. All you have to do is call upon His name...Jesus...and say, "Jesus, I need for you to rescue me." Then open your heart wide for Him to come in. Invite Him in. Say, "Search my heart, O God, and know me. Try my anxious thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me into paths of life everlasting." Then humble yourself and accept your guilt, and confess your sin. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. As far as the east is from the west are our sins from us. You are clean and holy. However, the enemy knows the way back into your heart. You have to now "fix your eyes on Jesus". Turn your back on the sin, and guard your heart. Don't let him back in, and if he gets back in, quickly confess your sin and turn from it. DO NOT "FIX YOUR EYES" ON THE SIN AGAIN. If you do, it will overtake you and the end will be worse for you than it was before. And then finally, "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." When there is a spirit of praise and thanksgiving in your heart, and when your "eyes are fixed on Jesus", there is nothing the enemy can do to you. This is a side note. We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. He has created us to be victorious. And we will "overcome" the enemies that are inside of us. We have to do it His way, though. We have to humble ourselves and accept our guilt. I know Jodi Arias was abused. I know that she did not have it easy, and she could easily point the finger at her boyfriend to justify her actions. We can't do that. We have to point the finger at ourselves and say, "I am guilty." The battle that is inside of us is ours, no one elses, and our God will rescue us if we let Him. He has come to heal our broken heart, and He has come to set us free. It has been said that a country cannot fall unless it is destroyed from within. I think we can see that happening, but there is also another verse to that song. A person cannot fall unless he is destroyed from within. It was not until this last year that I realized that every enemy we will ever fight is inside of us. These enemies cause us to fix our eyes on "self" and they cause us to turn our heart from God. These are the enemies, the ones that are inside of us, that we have to fight if we are to make it in the coming days. I am going to start by naming a few of them. This list is not comprehesive, but you can get an idea about what we are up against: anger, depression, fear, jealousy, greed, unforgiveness, revenge, pride, anxieties, lust, perversion, rebellion, control, self-pity, self-condemnation, selfish ambition, (anything with self in front of it), insecurities, rejection, abandonment, feelings of worthlessness, inadequacies, addictions, and the list goes on. These are the things we have to fight. In the past we thought that the forces that were against us were external, but they are not. The people and circumstances in our lives are only there to expose what is inside. Once exposed, we can deal with them, but as long as it is hidden, it has free reign to lie and to deceive our hearts. When we believe the lie, sin enters, and when we focus on the lie, it becomes a stronghold. The time has come for us to go in and take possession of the "Promised Land" (our heart). I know there are giants in the land, but our God is so much bigger than the giants, we just have to let Him in. So, when I go back to Leviticus 26, I see that when we allow any of these enemies in, God has to send consequences: terror, wasting disease, fever, blindness, sorrow of heart, pockets with holes in them. If you see any of these things in your life, chances are that there is sin in your life. You may not know it, but God wants us to reveal the sin to you so that you can turn from it. Now this is a "spiritual battle", and it can only be fought in the "spirit". If you think that you can say, "I'll do better. I can take care of this on my own," you are sadly mistaken. You cannot overcome the sin in your heart, only Jesus can, so we have to call on Him for help. So how do we do this? First, we have to call on the name of Jesus. It is written that "Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved." It is only through Him that we will find salvation. Then we have to open our heart wide and let the LORD come in. In Psalm 24 it says, "Open up you gates (my heart), you everlasting doors and let the King of Glory come in. Open up you gates, you everlasting doors and let the King of Glory come in, and who is the King of Glory, THE LORD OF HEAVEN'S ARMIES, THE LORD MIGHTY IN BATTLE, He is the King of glory." Ok, so when we command our heart to open - speak it outloud - our Savior and all the hosts of Heaven come in to fight for us. Then Psalm 139:24-25 says, "Search my heart O God and know me. Try my anxious thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in paths of life everlasting." Then we invite the LORD in to search and expose any enemy that is within. He will then bring things to our remembrance. Once that happens, we have to ... Accept our guilt. I know that we will be able to point the finger at someone else, and what they have done. This is not about them, this is about us. We have to accept our guilt. I held unforgiveness in my heart, I am so sorry, LORD. Please forgive me. Now I ask that You would forgive this person. Release them from this sin. Bless them. Pour Your Spirit on them. Give them peace and safety. And LORD, forgive me for condemning my self. I am so sorry. I have been believing a lie. You said, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus who walk after the spirit and not the flesh." You don't condemn me, so please forgive me for condemning my self. Now, LORD, see if there is anything else inside of me that offends You. Bring it to the surface. I ask this in Jesus' name. The LORD said that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. As far as the east is from the west, our sins are from us, never to be remembered any longer, so if you confess your sins, you have to trust this because another enemy that will try to attack is "guilt" and "condemnation", and you have to make sure that you "forgive yourself". Put this under the blood. If any of these three try to attack you, confess them as sins (we are not believing and trusting God). Once we have put all our sins "under the blood", peace enters our heart. Read Psalm 32 (in the New Living Translation if possible). Wow! The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy! This is our warfare. We know the enemy, and we know how to fight. But before we can begin, we have to want to. God will not come to us until we want Him to. That's where the consequences come in. When it gets bad enough, call upon His name. He will be there to rescue you. May the LORD say to us like He said to Leia, "I will not relent, my child, until your heart and My heart are one." Last week I was feeling my age. When I looked in the mirror, all I could see was mousy gray, so I turned to my friend Leia, who works at Sally’s Hair Supply, and I said, “Can you get me a hair color that will wash out, maybe some color of red?” She was excited. She does this all the time, so she chose the color she liked. Then she got a developer to go with it. Little did she know that the developer would make this color permanent. Little did I know what color she would find pretty.
The color she chose was burgundy. It started out purple, then turned bright reddish purple, and by Wednesday – after washing my hair two to three times a day to get rid of the color – my hair was bright, reddish pink, and I knew by the way it was fading that some shade of pink would be my final color. I was devastated. I didn’t know what to do, but my husband said, “Go. Get it fixed. It will be alright.” So I went to Pro-Cuts and found Tina. She didn’t recognize me. I said, “Help! Can you fix it?” She earnestly began to pray. She chose a neutral shade of brown to try to off-set the red. What came out was a dark, reddish (I think I will always have red), brown with rust highlights. I grieved. I know in the whole scheme of things hair is not important, but what I felt was real. Color is important to me. Come into my home and you will find all sorts of colors, but they are all earthy and natural. Look in my closet and you will find all sorts of golden green, brown, muted purple, rust…all earthy and natural. But my hair is like no other color I have ever seen on a human being, and I knew that there was nothing I could do about it, so I grieved. And I went to church. At church my friends made light of it. It was not important to them, but Kathy Ashe came and asked me what I had done all day. I went outside to tell her. I think only those people who have to go through chemo and lose their hair could fully understand what I was feeling, but while I was out there, the spirit came over me. I turned my face toward heaven, and I said, “LORD, You said that all things work together for good to them who love God and who are called according to His purpose. And You said in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you, so I choose to thank You. And You said that You know the plans you have for me…plans to prosper and not to harm, plans to give me hope and a future. And LORD, You said that the work of righteousness is peace and the effect of righteousness is quiet assurance. I do not have peace and I do not have assurance, so LORD, I know that there is something inside of me that is displeasing to You. I ask that you would forgive me for the pride that is in my heart. Forgive me for the conceit. Forgive me for self-pity. Forgive me for being concerned with what others think. I am so sorry, LORD. Forgive me.” At this point peace entered my heart. The circumstances didn’t change, but my heart did. Once again peace and joy flooded my veins. But as the days passed, I found that I could not pass a mirror or think about my hair at all without it consuming me. This frustrated me to no end because I normally do not have to think about myself, and now I was consumed with me. I continually had to turn my face toward Jesus and confess my sin. I had to take all my thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ Jesus. I had to consciously “give thanks” in all things. But in the process, I learned a few things. Four years ago the LORD told me that judgment was coming. Then He opened up the scriptures to me. When He revealed what was about to happen, I cried out, “LORD, we are not prepared. How are we going to make it?” He then gave me four scriptures. I am going to share all of them with you now. I had to use three of them to fight the “Battle of the Hair Color”. 1. First, He gave me Matthew 6:33: But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. It was not until this past year that I realized that God was talking about money. If you start in verse 19 and read to verse 34, you will find that God is laying out a plan for our finances. We no longer can follow after money. We will not know where we are going if we do. Instead, we have to fix out eyes on the Kingdom of God and what God is doing. If our eye is good (we are looking at God), our whole body will be full of light, but if our eye be bad (we are looking at money and not God), our whole body will be full of darkness. But if the light that is in us (we think we are looking at God) is really darkness (money), how great is that darkness. Now this goes against everything we have ever been taught to believe, but I think in the coming days, we will make a choice…do we serve God or do we serve money. This passage has nothing to do with hair color. The other three do. Read on. 2. Second, God said, “Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith.” Hebrews 12. When we put our eyes on Jesus, we get our eyes off of ourselves. That is so important. Circumstances are about to become extremely tough. Today it is hair color, but today is preparing us for tomorrow. If we can learn these four steps we will be prepared for what lies ahead. To do that, we have to turn our eyes toward heaven. If we are looking at what is happening on this earth, we will not make it. God has a big plan…a plan to prosper and not to harm, a plan to give us hope and a future, but if we have our eyes on the circumstances, we will not see the big picture…God’s redeeming love. 3. Third, God said, “Above all else guard your heart, for out of it flow the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23. There were all sorts of things that attacked my heart this last week. Self-pity was one. We have to guard our hearts in the coming days so that: worry, bitterness, hatred, jealousy, revenge, etc. does not enter. Let our heart be a barometer. If there is worry, anxiety, fear or insecurities that enter our heart, we know that there is something inside of us that is not trusting God. We then have to open our heart wide and invite God in. Let Him search us. He will reveal to us all things that oppose Him. Then we have to accept our guilt (we are guilty of not trusting God) and confess our sin, and then He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Then peace enters. That is what happened to me last Wednesday. 4. Finally, God said, “In everything give thanks for this is the will of Christ Jesus concerning you.” Once we cross over into thanksgiving, we cross over into victory. The enemy of our soul is defeated. Christ is victorious. So I will choose to give thanks. OK, so hair color is trivial. My son was not a first responder in West, Texas. My grandchildren did not attend Sandy Hook. We were not spectators at the Boston marathon. But the lessons that I applied to my heart with my hair color, could apply to situations that are much more “permanent”. God is good. He is still on His throne. His plans are good plans, and we can trust Him. I will choose in the coming days to “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness”. I will “fix my eyes on Jesus”. I will “guard my heart”. And I will “give thanks”. I pray that you, too, may find the peace that passes all understanding that will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. The Parable of the Raccoon (see video below!) made all the difference in the world to me. God unlocked "Spiritual Warfare" to my understanding. He made me understand that every battle we will ever fight is inside of us. Every "enemy" we have is already inside of our heart. These "enemies" (control, lust, pride, greed, jealousy, bitterness, envy, hatred, feelings of worthlessnes, revenge, unforgiveness...etc.) entered our heart when we believed the LIE. The coolest thing is that every LIE comes with a "raccoon" (anxieties, fears, insecurities). So our heart will tell us if we are right with God or not. Now, if we are believing and trusting in the TRUTH, we have peace. Our God is brilliant! According to Isaiah 32:17-20, "The work of righteousness is peace, the affect of righteousness is quiet assurance. My people will dwell in secure dwellings and in quiet resting places though hail come down on the forrest and the city is brought low in humiliation." No matter what happens, God will give us peace in the midst of the storm if we TRUST HIM! So, our heart is a barometer. It tells us if we are right with God or not. If we have peace, we are holy. If we don't have peace, we need to ask God into our heart to let Him tell us what lie we have been believing. Once the lie is exposed, we have to "humble ourselves and accept OUR guilt". I know that we can always point the finger and say, "Yes, but you don't know what this person did to me." It doesn't matter what others do to us, it matters how we respond to what others have done. If we respond in righteousness (to believe and trust God), we have peace. If we respond in disobedience, we have "raccoons" (anxieties, fears, insecurities). Once we accept our guilt, then we have to confess our sin. "God, I am sorry. I have sinned against You. I have___________ (fill in the blank). Please forgive me. Once we confess our sin, God forgives us our sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. As far as the east is from the west is our sin from us, and we are "holy" once again and peace enters. Read Psalm 32 in the New Living Translation if possible. You will be shocked. This is the place of safety and rest you have been looking for. This is the "secret place" of the Most High that it talks about in Psalm 91. This is our warfare. Seek peace and find it. "He will keep thee in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." My friends, God is about to take us places we have never been before, and the coolest thing is that once we get there, we can invite others to join us. This is our inheritance. This is our power. This is our God. Blessings, my friends. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our LORD Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. When the Word of the LORD came to me that said, "Judgment is coming," I cried out, "God, Your church is not ready! How are we going to make it?" He then gave me four scriptures that have to become our "Default Response" to every situation. The first thing He said was, "Don't look at money. Instead, seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Matthew 6:19-34) Then He said, "Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. (Hebrews 12:1-1) Above all else guard your heart. (Proverbs 4:22-23) And in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (Thessalonians 5:18) May the Spirit of God give us wisdom and understanding, and may we be doers of the word and not just hearers only, that we may be found blameless at the coming of our LORD Jesus Christ. I started writing about the eye of the storm a few weeks ago. I thought I would get back to it sooner than I did. Sorry. I know most of you are waiting in anticipation. :) No, really. The reason I write at all is because I want you to be ok in the coming days. Devastating things are about to happen. For some people it already has. Look at Sandy Hook, Boston, West, Oklahoma, and then last night we got an email from a lady who is selling her son's motorcycle. He and his fiance were killed two months ago by a drunk driver while on the way to his little brother's birthday party. When things like this happen, our heart will be attacked from all directions, and we have to know how to find peace in the midst of the storm. God's covenant with us is to give us life and peace. (Malachi 2:5) This only comes when we reverance Him, but we have so much garbage in our lives that we barely even take note of the God of the Universe, so He is about to turn our hearts back to Himself. Everything that happens to us in the coming days is meant to train us in righteousness (to believe God). That means that God has to expose the lies we have believed our entire lives. Once exposed, we can choose: life or death, blessings or curses. The choice is ours, so the trials of the coming days are coming to expose the lies and then one of two things will happen. Either the trials will purify our hearts. We will learn to trust God in ways we could never dream possible, and we will know him in ways we could never imagine. He is going to do this by taking away everything we have ever trusted in (Micah 5:10-15) so that we will never again worship the work of our own hands. Think about that one. Romans 1 says that we traded the truth for a lie and worshiped the creation more than the Creator. So God is about to turn our hearts back to the truth and to the Creator. We will no longer value things over God. This will come as a refining fire to purge us so that we will once again offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness. (Malachi 3:2-3) This doesn't sound like fun, does it? I don't think it is going to be, but if we will allow every circumstance to train us in righteousness (to believe God), we will make it. If we allow bitterness, anger, hate, revenge, covetousness, greed, jealousy, etc. (you get the idea) to enter our hearts and control us, we will not make it in this life or in the life to come. We have to purge our land (heart) of all enemies. Or the trials are coming to bring judgment on people who refuse to turn and live. The same thing is going to happen to the just and to the unjust, but it is written, a wise man builds his house upon the rock, and when the floods come, his house will stand because he trusts Jesus, and he is a "doer of the word" and not just a "hearer only". Those who are wise find refuge in their Savior. Those who are foolish run the other way, and it is written: "Because the rest of you have forsaken the LORD and have forgotten His Temple, and because you have prepared feasts to honor the god of Fate and have offered mixed wine to the god of Destiny, now I will 'destine' you for the sword. All of you will bow down before the executioner. For when I called, you did not answer. When I spoke, you did not listen. You deliberately sinned - before My very eyes - and chose to do what you know I despise." Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says, "My servants will eat, but you will starve. My servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. My servants will rejoice, but you will be sad and ashamed. My servants will sing for joy, but you will cry in sorrow and despair.. Your name will be a curse word among My people, for the Sovereign LORD will destroy you and will call His true servants by another name." (Isaiah 65:11-15) Terror, famine, disease, and destruction (Ezekiel 14 and 21) will come upon those who turn their hearts from the living God in the coming days, but the suffering that will happen in this lifetime does not come close to the suffering that will happen throughout all eternity. That is why God is going to do everything in His power to turn our hearts back to Him. HE DOES NOT WANT ANY TO PERISH!!!!! He knows what will happen to those who do not turn from their sins, and He does not want that, so like any GOOD Father, He is going to do everything in His power to try to save us. I don't know about you, but when I read things like this, I'm like...I want to be prepared, but how do we prepare? First, open your heart wide to God. Ask Him to come in with the light of His great love to search out every dark, hidden, broken, shame-filled, bitter corner. Ask Him to reveal what is inside of you. Then as He reveals it, accept your guilt (don't point the finger at someone else) and tell Him you are sorry. Say this outloud and say it to a friend. Do not let the things inside your heart remain hidden. Once it is in the light, it has no more power. Once you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Forgive others and forgive yourself. Say outloud, "LORD, forgive me for not forgiving myself. I am sorry." Then the peace of God which passes all understanding should enter your heart. If it doesn't, ask God to come in again and to expose the lies you have been believing. Confess it as a sin. Remember that condemnation is an enemy, too. If you have confessed your sin, and you have turned from it, you are clean. If condemnation comes in, confess it as a sin. Say, "God, please forgive me for condemning myself." Peace should enter. Seek peace and find it. This is the "eye of the storm". We have to stay here. We won't make it if we don't. So whatever happens..."Fix your eyes on Jesus"..."Guard your heart"...and "In everything give thanks." If we do this, we will make it. We have to have our eyes on Jesus, though. If we are looking at anything else, we will not be able to maintain peace. Now I am going to give you one of my favorite scriptures. It is in Phillippians. "Don't worry about anything. Pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for what He has done, and the peace of God that passes all understanding will GUARD YOUR HEART AND YOUR MIND in Christ Jesus. Blessings, my friends. May you enter and find rest in the "eye of the storm". I know that I am not off on what is about to happen - I see it everywhere. I see it when I open my Bible, it shouts at me from every page. I see it when I look at the news, I watch Glenn Beck and we keep up with Drudgereport and TheBlaze. I cannot believe what is happening right before our eyes, and nobody cares. Nobody is taking notice. It is crazy. What I don't know for sure is the time period. But let me tell you, in the spirit, it feels like the wind has picked up and the first pelts of rain are hitting windows. It feels like the windows should already be boarded up and we should be hunkering down to weather the storm. I want to first tell you the purpose of this storm. It always helps when we know why something happens. The purpose of God's covenant is to bring life and peace, but this requires reverence from us. We will greatly revere God and stand in awe of His name. Then we will pass on to the people the truth of the instructions that we receive from Him. We will not lie or cheat, we will walk with Him, living good and righteous lives, and we will turn many from lives of sin. (Malachi 2:5-6) The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and we really don't fear God much right now, but we will. The LORD says, "Look! I am sending My messenger, and He will prepare the way before Me. Then the LORD you are seeking will suddenly come to His Temple (us). The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming," says the LORD of Heaven's Armies. But who will be able to endure it when He comes? Who will be able to stand and face Him when He appears? For he will be like a blazing fire that refines metal, or like a strong soap that bleaches clothes. He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the LORD. Then once more the LORD will accept the offerings brought to Him by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, as He did in the past. (Malachi 3:1-4) So the storm that is coming upon the whole earth (Isaiah 24) is coming to test us and to purify us. Malachi 3:5-6 says, "At that time I will put you on trial. I am eager to witness against all sorcerers and adulterers and liars. I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress widows and orphans, or who deprive the foreighers living among you of justice, for these people do not fear Me," says the LORD of Heaven's Armies. "I am the LORD, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned My decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to Me, and I will return to you," says the LORD of Heaven's Armies. The most important thing I have learned in the last couple of years is that God is at the head of the enemy army. I first saw this in Joel the second chapter where it talks about an army that marches forth without breaking ranks. They dodge every weapon. They climb over every wall and into every window in every house in every city. It is like the garden of Eden in front of them, but a desolate... wasteland behind. This is the enemy army that has invaded everyone of our homes. We can see it in our children and our spouses and in the mirror. What was amazing was that God said that He was at the head of the column of this army. I said, "WHAT?" Then scripture after scripture flooded my mind. "All things work together for good to them who love God and are called according to His purpose." "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." "Take every hardship as discipline from God. For who God loves, He disciplines." Then God took me to Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. God gives the rewards, and God gives the punishment. WHAT A RELIEF! I know and trust the heart of my Father. He is good, and His plans are good, plans to prosper and not to harm, plans to give us hope and a future. So now I can rest. I will let my God deal with me. I will open my heart wide to Him so that He can heal me, and I will submit every part of myself to His will. I will hold nothing back. I will let Him deal with everyone of my fears and worries and insecurities and anxieties and frustrations. I will let Him have His way until all that is left is peace. I will then let this peace guide me straight into His arms. Our God is so good, and He loves us so! |
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